This invention relates generally to computer displays, and particularly to a system and method of characterizing and adjusting color rendition on a video display monitor.
The physical and electrical characteristics of color display monitors are sufficiently variable that even among monitors of the same type, color rendition varies significantly from device to device. Ambient lighting further affects the perceived color produced by a monitor. It is desirable in many applications of such monitors that images appear with the same perceived color for various users of various monitors in various ambient lighting conditions.
Accordingly, a number of techniques have been applied to achieve uniform color rendition across monitors and lighting conditions. In common techniques, devices known as colorimeters, photometers, or spectroradiometers are used to measure the output from a monitor, and the characteristics of the monitor or the data applied to the monitor are modified to provide a desired color rendition. However, these devices are expensive and must themselves be calibrated. Furthermore, the modification process typically does not lend itself to being performed by an ordinary end user of the equipment.
There remains a need for a simple and inexpensive device and method to permit characterization and modification of the output of a color monitor so as to achieve desired output characteristics.